Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Oh, in the US it would be trivial for an order to be fulfilled overnight: most online retailers do it. UPS and USPS are very fast and efficient. The publishers are...less so.
The issue is that the publishers eliminated their ability to process small orders decades ago.
On purpose.
In decades past, before the foreign multinationals took over, most big US publishers had significant direct to consumer order fullfilment capabilities that were dismantled to improve ROI.
Their order fulfillment processes are now geared towards shipping big orders to distributors and bookstore chains, not consumers or independent bookstores. That is why, when Amazon switched to just-in-time ordering for Hachette books during last year's catfight delivery times ballooned.
The only reason online retailers can deliver arbitrary books overnight is they pre-order large numbers and warehouse them indefinitely at *their* expense which is something the B&M operations can't afford to do.
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The system in germany is not that publishers send the books to the retailer. There is an intermediate party involved, that stores most books and then get them to the stores. The reatiler doesn't order at the publisher, but at his supplier. The supplier of course gets a cut on the profit. If you order a book not available at the supplier, you need to wait long here too, until the publisher himself fullfills the order.